I came back for you, Guinevere
by MrsDanversbinich
Summary: "As Morgana met her eyes, Gwen was suddenly seized by the idea that Morgana had lost what remained of her mind." Post 5x13 fic. Morgana visits Gwen in the night. Morgana/Gwen. Femslash imminent.
1. Chapter 1

A shaft of moonlight slanted across Morgana's face, illuminating the dark slash of her eyebrow, a watchful eye, and a teasing hint of her lips. As Lady Morgana, her lips had been such a promise of kisses and secrets that they had driven men to distraction. Now, they seemed full and swollen with the venom of snakes and hatred, but somehow still soft and welcoming. Gwen's sudden desire to run her thumb tenderly along them, or worse, kiss them, was something she was trying to put out of her head. That Morgana had somehow entered the castle and avoided capture or detection, probably at the cost of the lives of several good knights, ought to have been the queen's primary concern, but it wasn't. The fact that the woman before her was dead, killed by Merlin with a sword forged in the breath of a dragon, was something else she was giving oddly little thought to, and all because she was mesmerised by those lips.

"Hello Guinevere," Morgana purred, stood at the foot of the bed with her hands clasped, the way Gwen did in those long ago days as Morgana's handmaiden.  
She did not scream or wail horribly as Gwen believed spectres were prone to do, but neither were her hands mercilessly at Gwen's throat, as they almost certainly would have been if Morgana was real.  
Gwen sat up, arranging the covers around herself in a way which she hoped looked as though she was simply cold, and not scared. Truth be told, she wasn't scared, not at that precise moment. Her mind was still hazy from sleep, preventing her from being as alert as she maybe should have been, and she continued to be utterly entranced by Morgana's lips.

"What do you want, Morgana?" she asked, when the silence seemed to have stretched enough to fill several hours. Still she was not scared, and still Morgana stood motionless with her hands clasped before her.  
For a moment she was sure that a strangely disheartened look passed over Morgana's face, her chest moving a little with a tiny sigh, a light somewhere in her eyes going out. But she regained herself, as she always did. "Tell me, are you frightened Guinevere?" she began, her voice low as ever, still holding the promise of danger, but there came an almost imperceptible quaver when she spoke Gwen's name. Even after so many years, Gwen still understood her former mistress deeply, and nobody but she would have noticed her few seconds of weakness. The more closely she looked, the more clearly she saw the signs she had wished never to see again. Morgana's lip trembled for a second as she waited for Gwen's answer, and in her eyes, those wonderful, depthless eyes, was the vulnerability and confusion of the young Lady Morgana, unable to understand herself and her abilities, fearing the darkness which crept relentlessly closer every moment.

Ought she to feign fear and allow Morgana to believe that she was in control of the situation, or ought she to retaliate with a strength and bravery befitting the queen she was? She only needed to call out to bring into her chambers knights prepared to lay down their lives in her defence, and Morgana surely knew that. Unless they were lying dead, or somehow enchanted, on the cold stone floors beyond the door, and she was defenceless against the enchantress who had pledged a bloody revenge upon Camelot and its people. A chill did come upon her then, pulsing through her body in her blood, and she raised her chin, meeting Morgana's eyes, knowing that she could not be weak. "Why should I fear you, Morgana? You are _nothing_ now; you cannot hurt me."  
"You are wrong, Guinevere. I am the rightful queen, and I shall not rest until I sit upon the throne, the crown of Camelot upon my head." The fire had returned to her eyes, and her hands were clenched into fists, but still she had not moved from where she stood.

Gwen felt anger rising within her. Seeing Morgana so close, seeming so broken and defenceless, was stirring feelings she had thought were long dead. She wanted the woman to make her purpose known, then leave, before the overwhelming need to hold and comfort Morgana took her over completely. In the half light, Morgana looked younger, her knotted hair looking just as it did when she awoke from thrashing in bed in the throes of a nightmare, and something about that pitiful look told Gwen that it was to be her downfall.  
Morgana was silent, as though waiting patiently for Gwen to order her thoughts, except that waiting was something Morgana was incapable of doing patiently, which meant that she too was lost in her thoughts.  
"What do you want here, Morgana?" Gwen asked, forcing her voice to be as strong and unfeeling as she needed it to be, hating herself for it every second. Whether by force or by magic, Morgana could have killed her already, and Gwen could have screamed until someone came and dragged Morgana away, but neither had done what was expected of them. It unsettled Gwen.  
The response unsettled Gwen even more deeply. "You, Guinevere. I came back for you," Morgana said simply.


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps if it had been daylight, the harsh light bringing into perspective the reality and danger of the situation, Gwen would have shuddered in fear at the enchantress' words, but instead she found herself regarding Morgana with an unearthly sense of calm. As Morgana met her eyes, seemingly seeing nothing wrong with her words, and looking as though she fully believed that Gwen would simply climb from her bed and follow her to wherever she commanded, she was suddenly seized by the idea that Morgana had lost what remained of her mind.  
"You know that isn't possible, you know that I must stay here where I am needed," she explained slowly, as though to a child or an idiot, avoiding using the words 'queen' or 'Camelot' in case they shattered Morgana's temporary placidity.  
But her efforts were in vain. Finally demonstrating some movement, Morgana cried out in rage, turning her head, Gwen just able to make out the amber flash of her eyes, before something in the corner of the room exploded in a shower of sparks. "_I_ need you Guinevere, I have always needed you!" Morgana shouted, her voice rising and rising until Gwen was sure that she would be heard, "Does that count for nothing? Why should the need of others for you be put before my need?" She moved closer to the bed, close enough that another shaft of light illuminated her face once again, and Gwen noticed the dark smudges beneath her red-rimmed eyes, the painful-looking cracks in her dry lips, the corner of her mouth smeared with blood. She looked terrifying; she looked vulnerable.  
"They need you, yes, for they need direction. They needed Arthur, Uther, countless kings before them. They would need me if I were queen. They need a ruler, Gwen, no matter who that is. They do not need _you_, because if you were gone, someone else would take your place. Only I need you!" Her eyes were glassy with tears, something Gwen had not seen for so many years, and it had not escaped her notice that Morgana had called her not Guinevere but Gwen.

Gwen wondered for a moment whether she was dreaming; an intense, powerful dream caused by a final connection between her mind and Morgana's, which neither had been aware of, breaking. She wondered whether Morgana was dreaming of the same thing. But the sharp, tugging pain she felt when she looked up at the other woman made her realise that it was no dream. Seeing Morgana, once the immaculate Lady Morgana of Camelot, the woman she had looked up to and adored whole-heartedly, dirty, sick and begging before her, was more painful than the most exquisite torture. She wanted it to be over, no matter whether that meant she lived or died.  
"You do not need me, Morgana. I betrayed you, I helped to drive you away. I did not fight for you when I should have. I am disloyal and treacherous. I would not leave with you; I would betray you again and have Merlin kill you before you could leave Camelot." Gwen could not prevent her voice from shaking as she spoke the words, despite the fact that they were the truth. She expected Morgana to be angry, but it was becoming clear that the woman before her was quite different, if not in appearance certainly in temperament, to the Morgana she had known of late.  
As casually as though she did it regularly, Morgana sat on the edge of the bed, looking directly at her, as Gwen had done many times in her days as a serving girl. "You would not forsake me again, Gwen, would you? When I already have nothing and no one left?" And then, seeming to have no control over herself and her actions, Morgana reached out, her hand drifting up to just brush Gwen's cheek.  
"Morgana, stop that!" Gwen commanded sharply, trying desperately to forget the achingly soft feel of Morgana's skin against her own. Her fingers were surprisingly warm, and the touch had not been at all unpleasant. With Arthur gone, it was the most intimate touch Gwen had felt in days, weeks, perhaps months, for she tried not to count how long had passed since that day, and now she tried not to acknowledge that Morgana's touch suddenly seemed to hold more love within it than she had ever felt from anyone.

It was a trick. Yes, surely just a trick, an enchantment, designed to confuse her, to make her forget her allegiances, just as Morgana had done in the tower. "Your magic won't work on me this time," Gwen said, surprising herself with the firmness and resolve in her voice. "I'm stronger than you now, Morgana. Stronger than you could ever hope to be."  
"No!" The word came out in a gasp, or perhaps a sob, as though Morgana had no control over what she said or did, as though she had only just realised that she couldn't win. All at once, the lost, frightened look returned to her eyes, and every part of Gwen that had ever been a friend to Morgana ached to reach out and comfort her. Somehow she knew that the woman before her was too desperate, too broken, to refuse the comfort. And yet, what if it was more magic? What if the real Morgana – the vindictive, vengeful, murderous Morgana – lurked behind the pale stranger sat on the bed with Gwen, waiting for the moment the queen let down her guard? Gwen bit her lip for a moment as she agonised over what to do, before releasing her lip, her breath leaving her in a painful rush as she watched a tear slide down Morgana's cheek.  
Morgana did not cry. Ever.  
Except when she was around Gwen.  
Then she let down all of her defences and sobbed freely and a little childishly about anything which had upset her.  
Or, she _had_, before.  
It was not the first time Gwen had felt such a deep longing for the days gone by, when she was happy as Lady Morgana's handmaiden, attending to her every wish.  
Gwen felt her own thoughts becoming disordered and queer, and wondered whether Morgana had been waiting for this moment – the moment when Gwen herself became a little strange, confused, deranged – to carry her away without protest.

Morgana was meeting her eyes unwaveringly, defiantly, as the tears ran down her cheeks. "Why won't you notice?" she whispered plaintively, "why won't you comfort me, Gwen? What do I have to do?" Furiously, she scrubbed the back of her hand across her cheek, seeming not to care if she caused herself pain, wanting only to erase the signs of her weakness. "I sit before you, torn apart by pain, and you cannot even offer me a kind word? What happened to you, Gwen?"  
Gwen took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm herself. She could not bear to see Morgana upset and vulnerable, but a queen could not cry over the traitor who had her husband killed. She could offer her no kind words, no sweet, comforting touches, even alone in her chambers where no one would see or hear. But for Lady Morgana, her friend, the girl – woman – she had thought of as her sister for so long, she could.  
"Morgana..." she began, her voice trembling over the woman's name, and it felt unfamiliar on her lips to be speaking it softly, not in a furious rage.  
Morgana's head whipped up, spilling yet more of the tears which had been brimming in her eyes, her child-like look of hope so desperately pathetic that Gwen could not have changed her mind even if she'd wanted to.  
"Morgana," Gwen said again, a little more firmly, and held her hand out to the woman whom a tiny part of her had never really stopped caring for.  
Unwilling to look away and break the slightest of bonds which had formed between them, Morgana slowly linked her fingers with Gwen's. "I never stopped caring for you," she whimpered, as though she had read the queen's thoughts, "no matter what I did to everyone around you, I never stopped. I could sooner – and more gladly – stop myself breathing, than stop caring for you."  
And then Gwen reached out, cupping Morgana's damp cheek, every inch of her body aching with the most exquisite combination of fear and desire to comfort her. She felt Morgana's surprised gasp. "Kiss me?" she implored, too nervous to make the move herself.  
A strong, slightly rough hand moved against her cheek, and Gwen's lips parted a little in anticipation, expecting Morgana to be hard and fast, to kiss her roughly and then pull away. Instead, Morgana seemed as nervous as Gwen, her own lips parting just enough to capture the queen's, kissing her with a sweetness neither had even known before.


End file.
